


Like the Boy Scouts Do It (Prepared)

by Bottomfeeder



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Barron Battle how come we never got to meet you, Batman always warns about this exact scenario, Community: picfor1000, Families of Choice, M/M, POV: Warren Peace, but nobody ever listens, rage issues, superheroes who are still dangerous when they're neutralized, superheroes who can still fight when temporarily de-powered, you are so awesome in my head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bottomfeeder/pseuds/Bottomfeeder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warren has issues with the fact that he doesn't have issues with the best friend who was never supposed to be his best friend. </p><p>He also just has issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like the Boy Scouts Do It (Prepared)

**Author's Note:**

> Original posted for lj's 2007 picfor1000 challenge, the original post for which is here: http://picfor1000.livejournal.com/100458.html 
> 
> I was given the element metal with this pic assignment as a prompt:  
> http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/picfor1000/challenge%205/metal/m08.jpg

Ever since they took away his father, Warren’s learned to keep his mind and hands occupied.

 

There’s the constant reading --

 

And there’s the Swiss Army knife his father slipped him days before he started at Sky High. Two years later, when the latest Stronghold shows up, the rage finds him anyway. 

 

“Just in case someone douses you with a fire extinguisher or locks you in a flame-resistant room,” was the reason Baron Battle gave, with an easy smile on his handsome supervillain face. The knife’s shiny and slick, just like the owner. It isn’t the stupid toothpick-and-corkscrew kind, but the extremely practical. Something a worst-case-scenario person would carry. Two years later, Warren thinks he should’ve paid more attention to that. 

 

“Bet you didn’t know they made ‘em like this.” The smug glee in his dad’s voice as he showed off the hidden laser and Samurai-sharp blade was absurd and ridiculous and the love he feels for the maniac was like being gutted annually, talking to him from the other side of Maximum Security.

 

“No matter how great your power, it can always be counteracted by someone or something. Be prepared for anything -- even suddenly becoming as powerless as the rest of the world.” 

 

These words will haunt Warren when Stronghold Spawn neutralizes him with a blast of harmless foam. (Luckily, Warren has some degree of super-strength or else Will might’ve accidentally snapped his neck with all the tossing around.) And again, soon after, when he’s stuck in a very white room where no one’s powers work, with nothing but Will’s galling offer of friendship for company. Still, even then, Warren’s forced to respect the little pain in the ass. Will is nothing like Battle’s archenemy.

 

*

 

Sheets of silky gray fog roll over the ocean and occasional desolate boulder. The air is cold enough to slightly temper Warren’s body heat. The sun is nowhere close. It’s a scene that satisfies his mood until a bright blur of red and blue shatters the morbid peace he specifically acquired for himself. 

 

Will sees him absently playing sleight-of-hand tricks on the small island (glorified black rock) located close enough to the Alcatraz-for-supervillains so Warren can see it from a distance. 

 

“What’s that?” Will jerks his chin towards the flashing silver as he lands next to Warren, cheeks pink from cold.

 

The only thing that stops Warren from chucking fireballs is the gentle curiosity in Will’s voice and eyes. Since they’re somehow not the enemies Warren had expected -– demanded -- them to be, he passes on his father’s lesson without violence. At least some part of Baron Battle deserves escape. Warren tosses it. “My father’s Just-In-Case-It-All-Goes-to-Hell Swiss Army knife. Custom-made.”

 

“It’s so _warm_ ,” Will breathes, bringing it to his cheek on reflex and rubbing against the metal heated by Warren’s palm.

 

Warren stares. How the hell he’s supposed to react to that is beyond his common sense. Will’s entire face reddens when he realizes what he’s doing.

 

“Can we pretend I didn’t just do that?” he asks without making eye contact, the knife still pressed to his cheek in mid-motion.

 

“Just -- ” Warren chokes off the rest, reaching for his knife but jerking his hand away as if he was the one to get burned for once, when it comes into contact with Will’s skin.

 

It’s Will’s turn to stare. His own decision flits across his face. “Oh god, just don’t turn me into an ash pile -- ”

 

“What?! -- ” Warren’s voice is a harsh bark. A cold wave of panic rises inside him. 

 

“I’m about to do something stupid,” he needlessly clarifies.

 

“Then don’t do it! Don’t fucking d-- ”

 

Will’s lips land on him as a gentle burn, all ridiculous bravado. Done, Will breathes against his lips. Warren shivers in spite of himself.

 

“You fucking idiot, I said _‘Don’t’_.” But Warren’s voice sounds like it did in The Paper Lantern that night he agreed with Will labeling himself a jerk: Warm.

 

And Will’s just gasping barely coherent, “Oh my god, you used your _tongue_ \-- those are your _teeth_! -- so _that’s_ what Layla meant about me and you needing alone time -- ”

 

His father’s living ghost still haunts him in more ways than one. Will’s been keeping him warm in spite of himself, before today. Ever since they met, really.

 

“Are you always this warm?” Will interrupts his thoughts, still panting a little. “Or, you know -- ” He waves his hand like a spaz, almost hitting Warren in the face. “ -- just when you get, uh, excited?”

 

“Oh god, shut up,” Warren says against his best friend’s throat. Will is starting to establish a pattern with this dramatically-making-out-with-his-best-friends thing. Warren’s making Layla pay for it, later. He deepens the kiss with a growl he hopes will make all the voices in and out of his head shut up, too. He might not be standing there, but he can still hear his father laughing and saying, _I told you so._

 

Which reminds him –-

 

Warren lunges at Will. “One ‘flaming gay’ joke and I set you on fire.” The last word is gripped between teeth. 

 

“Dude, what?!” Will gives a surprised burst of laughter. “That hadn’t even occurred to me! But now that it has -- ”

 

Warren lightly thumps the side of Will’s head. He grabs Will’s face with both hands and kisses him with all the frustration he’s had stored since Will’s first gatecrash into his life. Warren gropes around for the knife with one hand and finds it resting on top of Will’s thigh. He places his hand over it just as Will breaks his control by sucking on his tongue, causing his hand to flare up and push burning heat through the metal into Will’s jeans.

 

“Ow -- ow -- hot -- it’s hot -- ” Will almost can’t get the words out between moans.

 

Warren rips his hand away and Will immediately starts a new mantra of “Just keep --just keep --”

 

Warren grins wolfishly into the kiss and the whole unbelievable situation and just keeps.

 

 

[-end-]


End file.
